Domestic Abuse Personal Statement

“Abuse is still seriously under reported. I was told by leading British social worker that when they hold training courses for employees, they find that a third of the females and slightly less of the males come forward to talk about their childhood experiences of being abused. Over ninety percent of parents as some time hit their children – and some people hit them several times a week – so there is a great deal of emotional hurt, fear and physical pain in the world today” (Davis 251). For this reason alone it makes perfect sense why violent crime rates are so frighteningly high.

Violence affects a healthy family’s relationship, state of mind and well-being, in other words, it’s normal functions. Because of violence, children are forced to endure and cope with mental, physical and emotional trauma leading to a display of impacts on health, development, and wellbeing. The effects build up over time and can impact on every aspect of their life.  How many children and innocent lives must suffer from something unnecessary? Imagine walking into a home late at night to find a child hiding in a corner, with a bloody face and cuts all around their body saying they were self-inflicted or making up other silly excuses like falling down the stairs out of extreme fear. Up to 75% of all acts of domestic violence occurs between the ages 18-24. No child should ever see domestic violence as normal because the moment that happens a future perpetrator has been born. We need to take a stand and refuse to let domestic violence become something we ignore.

Hello, my name is Dee and I am a survivor of domestic abuse. A good friend asked me if I would write a piece about domestic abuse. He said it would be therapeutic for me and beneficial for other women who have been abused or are being abused, and I think he is right. So here I sit wondering where to begin, after about an hour of emotional flashbacks. And when I do think about this I wonder how on earth could I have let it go on, and for as long as it did. And more-so, what did I ever do to deserve it. I was never abused as a child. Never beaten or abused emotionally or mentally, never called names, or cursed at, and I suppose I grew up thinking this was how it was for everyone. I was only 19 when I met my abuser. I already had a son, and had been out on my own for 2 years. Life was hard, bringing up a baby, surviving on living assistance, living in ghetto like neighborhoods. I had always aspired to be a journalist, but my dreams were broken when I became pregnant right out of high school and was forced out of the house to care for my son. I met my abuser one day when I was down town shopping with my son. He came into my life like a "wolf in sheep 's clothing", and was just about as nice as he could be. I suppose I was somewhat lonely since I never got to go out very often. He soon moved in with me and helped me with my son, helped in the house, and helped financially so things were definitely looking up. Or so I thought. He was from an abusive home himself, and years

Working with victims of domestic violence can be an extremely rewarding and fulfilling endeavor. One of the most crucial aspects for a paralegal working with victim of domestic violence is adequately engaging in the task of educating oneself to understand the commonalities of such victims and the ordeals that they have been through. Such clients are drastically different from other individuals who have suffered other physical and violent crimes. Understanding the background of someone who has lived through domestic violence is absolutely central to being able to provide adequate and sensitive legal care. Most victims of domestic violence are women (95%) though domestic violence can have an impact on ever age, class, race, ethnic, cultural or religious group (purplerainfoundation, 2012). "In the United States, nearly one in three adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood (American Psychological Association, Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family 1996 Report)" (purplerainfoundation, 2012). These women are often terrified of their partner's temper, apologize when they are abused and often in the most extremely controlling and isolated environment where the abusive partner will control who the partner sees and where the partner goes outside of the home, jealous of outside relationships (purplerainfoundation, 2012). In these abusive relationships the women are hit,

As a determined student looking forward to obtaining a doctorate in psychology with a focus in domestic violence. My passion will influence me to travel where all diversity constructs itself which is in the nation’s capital, Washington D.C, to indulge in my career. Within my experiences as a scholar in a Washington conference and a former volunteer at a crisis center the ticket will take me to graduate school in preparation for Washington. It is my goal to provide my assistance to those in need of upmost prestige’s psychologist and feminist advocate.

The first few years on a relationship, everything seems gold plated and perfect. Respecting, honoring significant others is a given, but unfortunately some feel the urge and need to claim their dominance over the relationship. Unexpected things would eventually start occurring, like physical assaults, diminished self-worth, and sometimes even child abuses are consequences of trying to dominate the members in a household. After growing up in a household where the abusive environment is dominating, people are known to develop trust issues, disturbed and unreal perceptions of reality; the solution may not always be clear, but immediate action is to be taken from the abused party or victims.

N., Tomsich, E., Gover, A. R., & Jennings, W. G. (2016)). As Mrs. Whitfield was going through college she would have various flash backs of her childhood. 25% of women and 15% of men have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) before the age of 25. It was often said that college students who have been involved in DV struggles academically, transfer institutions, or just drop out completely. Mrs. Whitfield would be labeled as a victim-offender because she was once a victim and now she is the offender. “Research on the victim-offender overlap observes this trend across delinquency, property crimes, and violent offenses, with the relationship between victimization and offending being strongest for violent crimes, particularly homicide” (Jennings et al., 2012). This would explain why Mrs. Whitfield had expressed that she killed her ex-husband because she caught him cheating and it was with a white woman. She witnessed her mother killing her father because he had cheated on her with a colleague. It has been shown in a study that females were offending equal to or greater than males. Physical maltreatment increases the risk for violence later on in life. Children who have witness and/or experienced the direct benefits of

An individual who is responsible for subjecting their intimate partner to domestic violence is often controlling, manipulative, aggressive, violent, and dangerous. It is important for an individual who is experiencing any form of abuse should contact authorities to prevent any further abuse in the relationship. While the victim of domestic violence is constructing a plan for a safe escape, the victim will choose a domestic violence attorney. A domestic violence attorney is a lawyer who specializes in family law.

Even though I have studied social work for years I still did not feel like I could empathize with victims of domestic violence as much as one would think and I felt guilty because of it. At my internship, when talking to Military Sexual Trauma victims, I felt like I understood more of their reasons because they did not have a choice but to stay in. Out here in the civilian world, one would think that you can pack up and leave whenever you want. It turns out that it is not that easy. Playing that game “In Her Shoes” on the first day of class made me look at this reality in a very different way. One can say that women are dumb for staying in a relationship, but not taking into consideration other factors such as children, threats, low-self-esteem, shame, and lack of resources. Although I may never experience this type of abuse, I can at least empathize with victims of domestic

Social workers have explained the situation an abused victim of family violence is in as high cost and low reward (Griffin, 2015). This is because despite feeling anguish the individual is trapped in the plight because the fear of being alone in the world is a worse alternative (Griffin, 2015). Individuals in such situations do not depart until an outside alternative promises them a better life (Griffin, 2015).

Domestic violence is a very important social problem that we must educate ourselves on because it has such a profound and negative effect on the individual(s) being abused. They are affected mentally, emotionally, physically, and I know from experience that the scars can run very deep. Being in an abusive relationship for three years was devastating to my self-image as a teenager, and because of these feelings of inadequacy, my decreasing esteem allowed me to stay in such a dangerous scenario. Healing from the negative effects of that relationship has been a difficult journey for me, and I can only imagine how much more difficult it must be for women abused for years on end. To this day, I struggle greatly with the ability to let go of my own "control"

My area of personal interest focuses on the wide scale social problem of child abuse. My area of interest centers on personal experiences; I was a victim of child abuse growing up and have had many issues stemming from said abuse throughout my adult life. I have also had experiences while being a case manager in the therapeutic foster care setting, seeing first hand how these children of abuse were being traumatized, degraded, and re-victimized by people who were “There to help them.” The educational peregrination that I have traveled only lead to more inquests. I kept finding myself inquiring about why the therapist was conducting the same interventions as myself? Weren’t they supposed to be unearthing the roots of the obstacles these children were facing and then assisting them in problem solving and putting the broken pieces back together?

One of the criticisms raised by Ondersma and colleagues (2001) is the issue of using the college student population as the basis of a study to look at the effects of childhood sexual abuse long term. I feel very strongly that I need to elaborate on that, and problems it likely presents. According to Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998), only 50% of American adults go to college. This cuts out half of the general American population right there. In addition, many of those who were sexually abused as kids may well never make it to college, for lots of different reasons, including the fact that they may never have had access to the necessary resources—mental, emotional, financial, psychological, etc.—to ever get there. Some may run away from home to escape abuse, and end up homeless or otherwise struggling just to keep a roof over their heads. Others may end up as teenage parents, who are too busy trying to survive and keep their children fed to have the luxury of higher education. Still others may succumb to the unrelenting dark reality of living with the depression, anxiety,

As a society, are we spending more money on the abuser’s rehabilitation and neglecting those free from moral wrong, who have been exposed to domestic violence? Some argue an innocent child is a prisoner of war, learning the business of abuse in their own home. Therefore, we cannot continue to disregard the children who are by default subjective to seeing domestic abuse, it will only allow them to continue the cycle as they enter adulthood.

“Battered women and their children experience a myriad of negative consequences as a result of domestic violence” (Borrego, Gutow, Reicher & Barker, 2008, p. 495). Families with children of every racial and ethnic group in the United States are affected by domestic violence (Buckley, Holt & Whelan, 2013). Domestic violence can result in physical injury, psychological trauma, and in severe cases, even death (National Domestic Violence Statistics, 2014). The devastating consequences of domestic violence can cross generations and last a lifetime (National Domestic Violence Statistics, 2014). Similarly, with sexual abuse, individuals may experience immediate shock, fear and or disbelief. Long term symptoms of abuse, coercion and violence includes anxiety, fear, post-traumatic stress disorder and may lead to brain development defects. Within my internship experience, three of my female clients were victims of childhood sexual abuse and are clearly still exhibiting psychosocial effects brought on by their